


The Castle and the Forest

by changsoo



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Cuddling & Snuggling, How Do I Tag, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sentinel/Guide, Telepathy, Threesome - M/M/M, some pretty mild discriptions of violence and bullying, super powers sorta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 17:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7371154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/changsoo/pseuds/changsoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyungsoo has spent most of his life listening in on humanity's darkest thoughts, then he meets Chanyeol and Kris, two quiet sentinels who mange to turns his life upside down in less then half a year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Castle and the Forest

**Author's Note:**

> So I haven't written in literally years and this is my first foray into the land of writing EXO fanfic so please be kind! Also not beta'ed so be warned, typos and funky grammar ahead.
> 
> EDIT:  
> So I decided to edit this fic a bit (mostly just grammar nothing major) and decided to leave a little note for future readers based on the comments left.
> 
> So this is a Sentinel/Guild AU which is a little like and A/B/O AU but with different roles. There are more Sentinel/Guild AU fics on AO3, if you're curious just scroll through the tag (unfortunate there doesn't seem to be many in the Kpop fandoms, the ones I've read were Star Trek and Harry Potter fics). I'm going to explain a little bit about this AU so those of you who're seeing it for the first time are not as completely lost.
> 
> A Sentinel is person who's biology gives them heightened senses and to some extent a predisposition towards athleticism (yes they're more likely to be good at sports but it's not about the sports but more about their bodies being able to build muscle and endure strenuous activity more so then average). Their over active senses sometimes 'zone in' on something which basically means they focus on just that thing and lose all other awareness of the world. If a sentinel stays in a zone for too long they may never come out, leaving them in something akin to a coma. 
> 
> A Guild is a person with some amount of telepathic/empathic abilities. The extent of the abilities depend upon the person but in this world the average Guild can clearly hear an average person's calm thoughts/emotions from a kilometer away at most. If there are too many people around them feeling strong emotions or thinking a lot this can give a guild a headache. In order for them to keep their sanity guilds build 'shields' around their minds to keep other people's thoughts out (and their's in), the larger a guild's range the harder it is for them to build shields. 
> 
> Sentinels and Guilds are meant to balance each other out. The Sentinel has strong mental shields to shelter which a Guild can hijack while the Guild can help help a Sentinel control their over active senses and keep them from zoning. 
> 
> I hope that helped and enjoy the fic~!

Do Kyungsoo spent everyday since he manifested the telepathic abilities of a guild at the ripe old age of six wishing he was someone else. It would have been so much easier if he'd been a sentinel. He would probably have escaped the majority of the snide comments, disgusted looks and out right beatings he'd received for his status. What may have remained he could have easily avoided or maybe event fought against with the enhanced senses and natural athletic inclination of a sentinel. It would also have been much easier to ignore his parents constant regret over his existence and their own marriage without the ability to read it in their thoughts every single day. Plus, getting lost in his senses - the only true disadvantage to being a sentinel - seemed a lot better then the splitting migraines caused by the strain of trying to keep himself contained within the confines of fragile mental shields.

At the very least it would have been nice to not be so 'sensitive' as the doctors put it. When he'd manifested they'd said Kyungsoo was probably the most sensitive guild in the entire greater city region if not the province. He could hear a person's thoughts from kilometers away if he so pleased and even control someone's thoughts and bodily functions with enough concentration. The down side to this supposed gift was that once people found out they begun to fear him. Kyungsoo had lost every single friend he'd ever made the moment they found out about the extent of his abilities, never mind that changing a person's thoughts was not only repulsive but also entirely pointless. It was better to have no friends then force people into liking him. He also suspected the fear was what ruined his parents marriage. He remembered the fear, anger and disgust underlining every screaming matches they'd had since he manifested.

When he'd still been a child, Kyungsoo dreamed of an escape from the constant mental and emotional torture that was his status. He'd imagined finding a nice sentinel who'd let him burrow into their mind and strengthen the paper thin shields that kept him tethered to his body. He'd imagined using his sensitivity to help keep the sentinel from getting lost among the little details in the world they couldn't keep themselves from noticing. He'd imagined being happy and cherished. 

Time had washed away those dreams slowly and painfully, with each wisp of fear and disgust he picked up from the people around him. By the time he'd made it to university he'd long given up on people and buried himself in beautiful piece of science called the computer, seeking the emotionless logic of code as comfort. 

Yet still, somewhere deep down Kyungsoo hoped for something better.

It was ten o'clock in the morning, the sky outside was gray and threatening to snow but the lecture hall was warm, too warm in fact. It turns out first year Calculus was a popular course, almost every seat in the hall was taken, there were students sitting on the steps to get closer to the board and there were still a few minutes left before the start of lecture. In fact, the only two seats left in the entire hall were in the middle of the back row on either side of Kyungsoo. The teen prayed to any and all deities for the two seats remain empty but to his disappointment and lack of surprise no one was listening. 

With barely a minute left before the start of lecture two tall men walked through the doors. One had large floppy ears, curly brown hair and a goofy smile, the other, a sour expression, bleach blond hair and a designer cap. After a quick scan of the room they made a beeline for the back row and with polite smiles settled around Kyungsoo just as the professor started to introduce himself to the class. 

Kyungsoo shrank into himself both physically and mentally in an attempt to lessen his exposure to the class's thoughts already dreading the migraine he'd undoubtedly get from all the mental noise in the room. The teen did his best to focus on the lecture and take neat legible notes. Fortunately for him, his seat-mates seemed to have some of the quietest minds he'd ever encountered in his life. Kyungsoo figured they must be sentinels, and pretty strong ones at that too, to have shields thick enough to keep even Kyungsoo's stupidly sensitive brain from hearing only whispers of thoughts.

About fifteen minutes into the lecture Kyungsoo noticed the man on his left, Curly Hair, slow down his writing. At first the teen figured he was just tuning out like a good chunk of the class bellow, it was Monday morning after all. Then Kyungsoo noticed that even even the whisper of Curly Hair's thoughts had quieted. For a few eerie moments it felt like he was sitting next to a statue and then it hit him, Curly Hair was zoning in. His sentinel senses must have caught on to some detail in the room - the crumbling chalk on the board, the scratch of someone's pencil or the smell of wet fabric from one of the coats around the room - and were focusing so closely on that detail that he was loosing awareness of everything else.

Kyungsoo swore under his breath as he took a quick look around and realized no one else had noticed his seat-mate's predicament. He could stop the professor and make a big deal out of this, likely embarrassing and alienating Curly Hair. He could nudge Sour Face but it was unlikely the other would know how to pull Curly Hair out, after all they only trained guilds on how to pull sentinels out of the zone. Or, he could try and pull Curly Hair out himself. He could only have been zoned in for a minute or two, he couldn't be too far gone, if Kyungsoo just provided enough stimulation to the man's other sense he'd likely come out of it himself.

Kyungsoo did a quick inspection of Curly Hair, who seemed to be intently staring at the board, his pupils shaking just the slightest bit, it was likely he'd zoned in on his sight. With a quite sigh the teen gently touched his cold fingers to a patch of skin just above Curly Hair's wrist. While keeping up the pretense of taking notes he glanced at Curly Hair's face to check he hadn't overloaded the man by mistake but he seemed just as focused on the board as before. Kyungsoo, carefully wrapped his hand around the man's forearm and started to rub small circles into the patch of skin he'd just been touching. At the same time he started humming quietly under his breath. He glanced back up and saw Curly Hair blink a couple of times and shake his head as if trying to dislodge whatever had caught his attention. A moment later Curly Hair was looking down at him with a wide, happy smile on his face and whispering thank you. Kyungsoo felt heat rise to his cheeks at the gratitude on the man's face and gave him a sharp nod while pulling his hand away then turned his attention back to the lecture. 

In his rush to get the blush off his traitorous, pasty skin Kyungsoo missed the quiet look of wonder and understanding that passed over his head, between the two friends.

By the end of lecture half an hour later Kyungsoo had managed to get his face under control, however he was also mostly lost. He'd missed a chunk of what the professor had scrawled on the board and he'd have to go over what he had gotten down again to make sure he actually understood it. After being dismissed the teen started packing up, bracing himself for the freezing temperatures outside when his thoughts were interrupted by a deep voice from his left.

"Hey, thanks again for pulling me out earlier, I owe you!" said Curly Hair, sincere happiness painted across face even if the expression seemed a little exaggerated oh his features. 

"It's nothing, don't worry about it," Kyungsoo mumbled back, barely looking up. He sped up his packing; the last thing he wanted in was another person who'd hate him after finding out about his sensitivity.

"Look let me buy you a coffee, please!? Or tea, or hot chocolate or whatever you like. I'm pretty sure Kris actually got notes from the entire lecture so if you missed anything you can copy off him." 

Sour Face - Kris - seemed to grunt in assent but a quick glance in his direction showed minimal change in his expression.

The offer was tempting, it be a lot easier to figure out what was going on if his notes didn't have a glaring hole in them but Kyungsoo quickly shoved that thought aside. He had a textbook, he'd figure it out.

"Sorry, I have class, I gotta go," Kyungsoo lied, swinging his backpack over his shoulder as he squeezed past Sour Face and through the mass of students.

"Alright, maybe next time!" Curly Hair called after him.

Kyungsoo hoped he'd forget.

Wednesday morning saw Kyungsoo power walking through slush as he rushed to Calculus. After giving up on trying to sleep in a dorm of dreaming or partying people, he'd escaped to the library and finally fallen asleep on one of the tables. Unfortunately, in his exhaustion he'd forgotten to set his alarm. He'd had just enough time to run back home, grab a change of cloths, brush the morning breath out of his mouth and rush back out the door. As it stood he'd probably be sitting on the steps in Calculus.

Kyungsoo made it to the lecture hall with barely a minute to spare and as he'd predicted it was just as full as it'd been on Monday. He scanned the seats just in case which was when he spotted Curly Hair waving and motioning rather wildly in his direction. He and Sour Face - or Kris if he remembered correctly - were sitting in the exact same spot they'd sat on Monday, complete with a chair between them which was currently occupied by one of their coats.

A quick glance behind him confirmed the lack of other people and Kyungsoo quietly debated with himself. Sitting with Curly Hair and Sour Face was a terrible idea, he didn't need them getting any ideas about him wanting to be their friend or something like that. On the other hand the steps were wet from the slush outside and there was no way to stand and take notes. The teen heaved a sign and maneuvered around the people already on the steps and up to the last row. He reached Sour Face and mumbled a question about taking the seat which Curly Hair had already vacated. Sour Face nodded and Kyungsoo dropped into the seat. Curly Hair looked like he was about to start talking but the professor pulled the class's attention to the front so Curly Hair settle for a quite 'hi' accompanied by a jaunty wave. Kyungsoo gave him a curt nod and shed his coat, hat and scarf, then pulled out a notebook and pencil case and settled in.

Thankfully, the lecture passed uneventful. In fact Kyungsoo found himself involuntarily relaxing in the relatively quite hum of his seat-mates' minds. After the class was dismissed Curly Hair again offered him coffee which Kyungsoo turned down saying he was busy and beat a hasty retreat. The logical part of his brain was throwing warnings left, right and center and Kyungsoo vowed to stop sitting with the two.

Kyungsoo honored his vow on Friday and sat beside someone else only to spend the rest of the hour with a growing head ache. He'd managed to to get squeezed between two guilds who'd spent most of the lecture distracted by everything from the hot girl a few seats down, to their phones, to Kyungsoo's 'ghostly' mental signature - a result of him curling as tightly inward as he could to avoid their thoughts. Needless to say he understood less of the material delivered on Friday then he had of the material delivered Monday.

The next week's worth of Calculus classes ranged from bad to intolerable and by the end of the second week of classes Kyungsoo was straining to keep himself together. In the mean time, he couldn't help but notice Curly Hair dragging Sour Face to sit as close as they could to Kyungsoo each class. By the third week of classes Kyungsoo gave up. On Monday he sat back in the seat he'd occupied during the first week, the seats on either side of him empty. Anxiety was clawing at his heart even at this small attempt to put himself out there. He fiddled with a game on his phone in a bid to distract himself while he waited for class to start. Fortunately for his heart he didn't have to wait very long. Just a scant few minutes later he heard a familiar deep voice above him.

"Hey, are these seats taken?"

Kyungsoo looked up to see Curly Hair motioning to the seats with a tentative smile on his face, Sour Face behind him looking, as always, slightly pissed off. The teen shook his head and watched Curly Hair's face light up like Christmas tree while Sour Face lips' pulled up into a tiny grin, although Kyungsoo had a feeling it had more to do with Curly Hair then the seats.

"Thanks! My name's Chanyeol and that's Kris. I'm pretty sure we forgot to introduce ourselves."

Kyungsoo had to take a moment to gather himself before he could reply, it'd been a long time since anyone had been so happy at him.

"I'm Kyungsoo, it's uhh nice to meet you?" The teen had the urge to hit his head against the expendable desk. Why did he have to be so awkward?!

"Nice to meet you too," came a quite raspy voice from his right. Sour Face - Kyungsoo really needed to start calling him Kris in his head, god forbid he call him Sour Face by mistake - still had the smile from earlier on his face. The teen realized this was the first time he'd heard Kris actually speak. 

Kyungsoo smiled at the man as a thank you for humoring his awkwardness but he had a feeling it came out as more of a grimace then anything else. It'd been a long time since he'd smiled too.

"Oh my god, you have such a cute smile! You should totally smile more --" 

"Shut up Yeol, you're freaking the poor guy out," Kris interrupted. "Sorry about him, he has no brain to mouth filter, not that he's wrong, you do have a nice smile." Kris's smile had morphed into a smirk while Chanyeol was doing an admirable impression of a sad puppy as he pouted at his friend.

Kyungsoo, whose head had snapped up at Chanyeol's cooing, spent the next few moments opening and closing his mouth in the likeness of a landed fish. He was saved from trying and failing to figure out what to say to any of that by the professor who chose that moment to start lecture. The teen turned his attention to the front, not missing the smiles Chanyeol and Kris flashed him before they too buried themselves in the intricacies of integration by parts. 

The lesson went better then even the one on the Wednesday of first week. Buffered by the tall men's quiet minds Kyungsoo could finally focus on what the professor was trying to impart to the class. He was still pretty lost but he finally found himself grasping bits of the material. By the end of lecture he felt more relaxed then he had since he'd started university last fall.

As they were packing up Kyungsoo gathered his courage and turned to Kris. "So, uhh, Chanyeol mentioned before that you got the notes form the first class down and umm I was wondering if you would you still be willing to let copy the chunk I missed?" by the time he'd finished speaking his eyes had dropped to the bag at his feet and his voice was barely above a whisper. He wondered if Kris had managed to get even half of what he'd said in the noise of the hall.

"Of course, but didn't you say you had class after this?" Kris asked and Kyungsoo's head snapped up, surprised that the man had both agreed and remembered the lie. A moment later a cringe twisted across the teen's face.

"Uhh, I may have uhhh lied about the class thing... sorry," Kyungsoo looked back down at his bag waiting for either of the two friends - or worse both - to flare up with anger, instead he got a quiet chuckle.

"It's fine, we figured as much after you spent god knows how long with your head between your knees after class last Monday. I had to practically drag Chanyeol by his obnoxious ears to keep him from carrying you to the nearest hospital, bridal style."

"Hey, in my defense you looked in pain! I still think we should have at least taken you to the Health and Wellness Center or something," Chanyeol replied, indignation in his voice and a pout on his lips.

Kyungsoo blushed to the roots of his hair. No one had ever noticed his pain before, at least no one that wanted to help. "I uhh get headaches if I spend too much time in crowded rooms," he mumbled under his breath as his fingers played with the zipper of his backpack.

Chanyeol hummed in understanding. "Me and Kris usually hang out in the lounge downstairs but maybe we should relocated to the library or something then," he said as they both stood. Kyungsoo lurched up from his seat and swung the bag over his shoulder as he quickly agreed. He hated to think what kind of migraine the student lounge would give him.

They shuffled out of the hall and power walked through the frigid wind with a quick stop-over at a near by food truck for some greasy, warm food. Upon reaching the library Kyungsoo lead them up to the top floor and over to his secluded corner which consisted of a small table surrounded by tall book shelves, a window on one side and an outlet in the wall on the other. The shelves were packed with old encyclopedias, dictionaries and textbooks which made the place rather unpopular. Even the librarians rarely had reason to come up here meaning he could sneak in his lunch, and dinner sometimes, without having to go out of his way to hide. In short the place was practically perfect.

They spent the rest of the morning between Calculus notes, eating and random chatter.

"So, what's your major Kyungsoo?" Chanyeol asked in between bites of his burger.

"Computer Science, at least that's the plan. Apparently there's too many first years and if I want to continue I need a 75% average at the end of the year so we'll see. You?"

"Damn, I feel ya. I'm second year ECE. I transfered over recently and /apparently/ my math's not good enough hence why I’m stuck in first year Calc. I might see you in a some courses later though if all goes well, heard ECE and CS cross over a bit in third and forth year."

Kyungsoo hummed in agreement at that as he chewed his fries.

"Oh great," Kris gripped at them with a grin. "I wonder how long it's gonna take before you two start debating whether hardware's more important then software or something equally ridiculous."

"Like you're one to talk Mr. Money's-more-important-then-life. He's a Business major and a year older then me. I've hear enough about money in the past few years to set me for life," Chanyeol teased Kris only to have a sharp elbow dig into his side.

"I have said no such thing you big baffon! It's not my fault you would spend all your money on video games if I wasn't there to tell you to put aside some for food and rent."

Kyungsoo couldn't help himself when a giggle slipped past his lips. "What games do you play?" he blurted out to hopefully cover the embarrassing sound.

The rest of the conversation descended into a debate between the pros and cons of JRPGs, defended by Kyungsoo and FPSs defended by Chanyeol with snide comments thrown in every once in a while by Kris who was at best a casual gamer. One o'clock came way too quickly and before any of them knew it Kyungsoo was leaving for class again. As he marched down the street the teen realized he'd probably talked more in the last two hours then he had over the past semester and smiled more then he had since he'd entered high school.

Kyungsoo, Chanyeol and Kris continued their seating arrangement during Calculus and as the semester progressed the the lecture hall started to thin out with people either dropping or skipping the class. They moved forward a few rows at a time until they were sitting at approximately the middle of the room. The closer they got to the middle the more Kyungsoo realized just how different Chanyeol and Kris were from him. 

For one, they seemed to know, or were known by, at least half of the attending class which Kyungsoo approximated to be somewhere around 30 to 40 individuals. They were constantly pulled into conversations with people and while Kris might have been more on the dismissive, if not out right uncomfortable, with some of the attention Chanyeol seemed to thrive under it. He remembered names and face better then Kyungsoo could have imagined and managed to make every one around him smile. He even managed to pull Kyungsoo into some of the conversations despite his awkwardness. Through him the teen made his first friend since high school, a first year CS major named Baekhyun who he'd noticed in a few of this other classes. 

Baekhyun was just as chatty as Chanyeol but where the engineer was all big smiles and weird jokes Baekhyun was sharp grins and well aimed wit. Between a shared lab and a group project the older had wormed his way into Kyungsoo's life effortlessly. What was the most surprising was that Baekhyun, who was also a guild, had picked up on Kyungsoo's sensitivity yet instead of the harsh words and sharp glares he'd expected, Baekhyun had been genuinely understanding about it all.

The first time he'd let his telepathy slip Kyungsoo had made an absent minded comment about Baekhyun's annoyance at the tabbing in some starter code. The teen had panicked for a moment but when Baekhyun opened his mouth to rant, it was about the code not Kyungsoo. The older boy had obviously noticed though because over the next few days he started to pick up on Kyungsoo's avoidance of populated spaces and the pain that spiked through his head after some of their shared lectures. Yet instead of being afraid or annoyed he'd given Kyungsoo some Advil and let him choose where they sat. He went as far as consciously quieting his mind if they were surrounded by people to remove at least a little of the noise.

Needless to say in a scant few weeks, Kyungsoo, starving for some companionship, was stuck to Baekhyun like a barnacle. They took to trading snide comments about their classmates and professors and spending hours in front of the Baekhyun's TV playing games, often joined by Chanyeol and even occasionally by Kris. It was on one of these nights, just before the storm that was midterms was scheduled to hit next week, that Baekhyun threw what seemed like an absent minded comment at him.

"They're nice, aren't they?"

"Who?" Kyungsoo glanced over at Baekhyun to see why his character had stopped fighting back on the screen and was met with a look that said Baekhyun thought he was an idiot.

"Kris and Chanyeol."

"Oh, uhhh yeah" was the only thing Kyungsoo could come up with.

Baekhyun's look of judgment intensified. 

"What?" Kyungsoo barked at him after a few moments. 

Baekhyun rolled his eyes. "Do you like Chanyeol and Kris? And don't make me regress to middle school terms, you know exactly what I'm asking you." 

Kyungsoo freezes. He supposes it's not an invalid question ask. Chanyeol and Kris had hung out with them earlier and in his distraction Kyungsoo belated realizes he'd been practically sitting in Kris's lap, the man’s long arms wrap securely around his waist. Meanwhile Chanyeol had alternated between sprawling across them both while throwing enthusiastic advice around and shoving himself into Kyungsoo's side as he tilted his body this way and that to follow the motions of his character. 

"Oh god, you haven't even considered how you feel about them past friendship have you?" Baekhyun asked, exasperation and a sort of sad wonder in his voice.

Kyungsoo shook his head, eyes ready to pop right out of their sockets. 

"Well think about it then, cause I'm pretty sure they are," was Baekhyun's curt reply. He picked his controller back up but Kyungsoo made for a terrible opponent when distracted so they called it a night and the teen headed back to the library to get some sleep.

Half way through the week of hell that was midterms it happened again.

Kris, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo were sitting in Calculus scribbling down answers to review questions as the professor explained how to solve them when Kyungsoo felt Kris still beside him. He glanced over and saw the man's face had gone completely blank, his eyes were half closed and glassed over, he'd stopped writing and was slumped forward in his chair. Kyungsoo looked over at Chanyeol on his other side but the engineer was absorbed in the lesson and Kyungsoo figured one of them had to take notes if they were going to pass on Friday.

The teen turned his attention back to Kris and after a moment deliberation Kyungsoo let himself reach tentatively out with his mind. There was no other way for him to know which sense the man had zoned in on, he was pretty sure it wasn't sight or touch but there were three other choices and if he guessed wrong he could do Kris even more damage. 

In Kris's mind Kyungsoo found only the sound of scratching pencils which gave him all the information he need to start helping. As he had with Chanyeol he started with a hand on the man's forearm, lightly rubbing circles into the skin. When that didn't seem to have much of an effect he pulled the scarf from around his own neck and wrapped it over Kris's nose as gently and inconspicuously as he could and switched to rubbing circles into the palm of his hand which would be more sensitive.

After a several moments with no results Kyungsoo realized this was significantly more serious than Chanyeol's situation had been. He closed his eyes and dipped back into Kris's mind. Carefully, he let the tendrils of his consciousness sink deeper and deeper until he reached the center of the man's mind where the most primitive parts of Kris's mental functions were, including the centers which controlled sensory input. He wrapped himself ever so gently around the part which controlled Kris's hearing and started to dull it, keeping bits of the information it was trying to send out from reaching the rest of this mind. 

That seemed to do the trick and he felt the man's awareness return bit by bit and then almost all at once and suddenly Kyungsoo was surrounded by Kris.

Kris’s mind manifested arround Kyungsoo, tucking him inside the cool stone walls of a castle with beautiful stain glass windows. The halls of the castle were draped in luscious and intricate tapestries depicting precious moments in Kris's life while the rooms seemed to be where Kris kept the people most important in his life. Chanyeol was the exotic garden sprawling through the center of the castle, his parents were the warm and well appointed dinning room while while Kyungsoo was the quiet, comfortable library with arched windows looking out into the garden. 

In that moment Kyungsoo knew if he could he would stay there forever. 

A laugh bounced through the halls of the castle and Kyungsoo rather abruptly realized what he was doing. He was invading Kris's most private of sanctuaries and he had absolutely no right. The teen practically ripped himself out of Kris's mind in his haste to keep himself from getting any more attached to the castle.

Back in the lecture hall Kris let out a quiet, pained grunt as Kyungsoo pulled back into himself and took his hand back. The teen mumbled an apology and steadfastly ignored all of Kris and Chanyeol's attempts to get his attention for the rest of the class. Once they'd been dismissed Kyungsoo rushed to pack up and fled the hall with an excuse that he needed to study. He spent the rest of the day and what was left of the week holed up in his library corner. Letting himself be distracted by complicated integrals and lines of logical code.

Midterms passed, the weekend came, and soon Kyungsoo ran out of both legitimate excuses and the metal power to completely avoid Kris and Chanyeol. He had in between the stress of the week admitted to himself that he'd become attracted to the two and that their presence greatly helped his migraines. 

That, however, did not mean that Kyungsoo was ready to jump into a relationship with either one of them. It was too fast, he barely knew them and he was so, so scared. He'd watched his parent's marriage fall apart around them and been the unwilling witness to the dark corners of numerous relationships throughout his high school years. He knew how easily people could grow to resent and hate one another when not so long ago they had promised to love each other. 

The part of Kyungsoo that vividly remembered these experiences was urging him to cut all ties with Kris and Chanyeol. To stop sitting and hanging out with them, to put some distance between himself and Baekhyun, to forget what it was like to be in Kris's mind, to forget what having friends felt like. The closer they got the more it would hurt when they stabbed him in the back. 

The thing was Kyungsoo was sick of being afraid. He'd spent his entire life curling in on himself to get out of people's way, he'd done his best to become invisible just to not get hurt. He knew jumping into the deep end too quickly was a bad idea but he didn't want to let go of the little pieces of peace, sanity and himself he'd managed to salvage by way of letting those three men in. 

Another part of his mind also whispered that it was highly likely that Kris and/or Chanyeol didn't even like him that way. Sure Baekhyun may have thought they were thinking about it but that didn't mean he was right, and even if they had been thinking that didn't mean the conclusion would be in his favor. Why would such brilliant, kind and caring people be interested in someone who was so obviously broken and beaten? Not to mention the fact what it was a thinly veiled fact that Kris and Chanyeol were an item. They spent so much time together, the way they looked at each other plus the casual skinship they shared screamed deep, well rooted feelings. They'd need a guild eventually to help them balance out their senses but whoever that guild was the two would probably want to actually include them in their relationship not keep them on the side. It would not be enough for just one of them to like Kyungsoo, he'd have to win them both over if he wanted a real, stable relationship and that made it all the more unlikely.

After hours of thinking himself into a tangle Kyungsoo came to a conclusion. He'd do his best to maintain the friendships he'd made but he would put some distance between Chanyeol and Kris and himself. He wasn't ready to have his heart broken and the likelihood of anything else was too low for him to justify the risk, particularly when two treasured friendships were on the line.

So come next Monday Kyungsoo went back to sitting with Chanyeol and Kris. They both seemed somewhat relieved which left a warm feeling in Kyungsoo's chest and while Chanyeol looked like he wanted to say something Kris seemed to stop him. They went back to studding together and hanging out. Kyungsoo even started to join them in the student lounge on his good days where he met their group of close friends. However, he made sure to always sit either across form them or at least have Baekhyun between them. The older boy of course noticed this development and shot him questioning looks but after a week of stubborn silence and head shaking Baekhyun seemed to give up.

Unfortunately for Kyungsoo just as things seem to go back to normal his migraines started to increase in magnitude. By week eight of the twelve in a semester sleeping in the dorms had become absolutely impossible. On top of that the library was slowly becoming busier and busier with finals on the horizon so his sanctuary was slowly becoming louder and louder. Going to class, even Calculus, was quickly becoming unbearable. 

After a a good two weeks worth of pestering from Baekhyun and worried looks from Kris and Chanyeol Kyungsoo finally gave in and went to see a doctor. The doctor however could do very little for him. She gave him a prescription for some stronger pain killers and told him it would be best if he found himself a sentinel to properly protect his mind. The teen just barely kept himself from spitting in her face and silently vowed never to go back to that walk-in clinic. The pain killers helped some but they also left him feeling drowsy and unfocused which was rather counter productive when he needed to be at his most alert and focused in order to study for finals. So, the medication was mostly relegated to a sleeping aid and Kyungsoo did his best to brave the pain during the waking hours of the day, focusing as much as he could on his studies. 

Finals passed in a blur of pain, studying and that zen place in which you knew you were screwed but can't be bothered to study any more. Before he knew it finals were over and Kyungsoo was hugging Baekhyun, then Kris and Chanyeol - who seemed to be doing their best to crush him between them - goodbye and clambering on the train home with a suitcase full of clothes and notes. 

At first going home was a relief. The small, sprawling suburb where Kyungsoo had grown up was significantly quieter then the crowded, bustling city he'd spent the last eight months in but the moment his parents came home from work he realized just how wrong he was. The constant buzz of anonymous thought was so much better then the dark dirty emotions rolling off his parents. His heightened sensitivity only highlighted the fact.

In a bid to get away from home and help pay for tuition Kyungsoo found himself a part time job in the bakery of the local supermarket. It was a lot of heavy lifting, flour and early mornings but the baker's 5 am shift meant the entire store was empty for about half the time he was there. The true gift of the job however was that most of his co-workers were not only sentinels with quiet thoughts but genuinely good people, even if they were not perhaps not the most disciplined, or sane. 

The best part of Kyungsoo's day was coming home at 1 pm after a long eight hour shift to an empty, quiet house to spend the next few hours texting or calling Baekhyun, Chanyeol and/or Kris. Some days they even managed to get a group video chat going and it was like balm to his tired mind. However, every time his mother and father came home he could feel their thoughts wash over him a little more harshly. He could only sleep after taking the pain killers and only a month into summer vacation he was barely hanging on by a thread. 

The breaking point came on the first weekend of June. He'd been getting a glass of Coke from the fridge when the low key migraine building in the back of his head spiked and Kyungsoo dropped the glass. It shattered at his feet and in seconds his mother was standing over him yelling. He bent down to pick up the shards of glass, cutting up his shaking hands while she went off about how useless he was. His father was there moments later adding his own opnions on his freakish son and by the time the floor was clean Kyungsoo could barely hear them from the ringing in his ears. He was drowning in their hate, disgust and fear and for the life of him he couldn't seem to get away.

The teen fled up the stairs to his room and climbed under the blankets despite the heat. He curled himself into a ball, rocking back and forth. His head was ringing and he could still hear his parents thoughts loud as a marching band. The small part of his brain that was still capable of complex thought told him his shields had probably torn. Kyungsoo panicked and fumbled to grab his phone off the bedside table, pulling it to his chest. Between his shaking, bloody hands and the blurriness clouding his vision it probably took him five minutes to maneuver through the menus on the touch screen and dial.

"Hey, Kyungsoo! What's up?" came the sound of Chanyeol's voice. The man's happiness was so infectious that despite the pain he was in Kyungsoo felt his lips pull into the smallest of smiles.

The teen opened his mouth to plead for help only to have his throat close up and a rather strong sob come out instead.

"Kyungsoo... Kyungsoo, are you okay?" Chanyeol was worried now. Kyungsoo tried again.

"I-" he sobbed again but tried to keep going. "Help, p-please?"

"Shit. Soo, are-" Chanyeol's now panicked voice was cut off.

"Hey Soo, it's Kris, can you hear me?" came Kris's no less worried if a little more collected voice."

"Y-yes," he half said, half sobbed.

"Hey none of that now," Kris cooed. "It's gonna be okay, just tell me what's wrong, okay?"

"My head h-hurts. I- I- I t-think my shields t-tore," Kyungsoo stuttered out after a couple of hitched breaths, trying his best to stop crying if only to make Kris happy.

"Okay, where are you right now?" Kris asked calmly again.

"H-home."

"Can you tell me the address sweetheart?"

Kyungsoo stuttered out his home address as another part of his brain soaked itself in the nickname Kris had just used on him.

"You're doing great Soo, thank you. I'm going to give the phone back to Chanyeol and call you an ambulance because it'll be at least an hour before we can get to you. I need to stay as calm as you can and don't end the call okay?"

"O-okay."

Kyungsoo heard some shuffling and what sounded like Kris saying "talk at him" and then his ear was filled with Chanyeol's smooth low voice straining to keep itself together while he talked about everything and anything. The sound helped relax him if not pull him out of his parent's hate and the miscellaneous thoughts of his neighbors. What was left of his shields seemed to be slowly pealing away filling his mind with more and more noise. 

He didn't know how much time had passed but at some point Kyungsoo registered sirens over the ringing in his head and Chanyeol's rambling voice. There were people pushing into his house and Kyungsoo could feel both the paramedics and his parent's become angrier and angrier and then there was a man and woman pulling the blankets off him and moving him from the bed, on to a stretcher. The world started to collapse into one big blur. One moment he was on the stretcher and the next he was in room with monitors waiting and waiting while other people's pain slowly filled his mind. 

After what felt like both an eternity and a scant few seconds Kyungsoo heard the faint murmurs of familiar voices. He reached out for them, listening and stretching as they got louder and louder until he could finally put a name to them. It was Kris and Chanyeol. Kyungsoo pushed his mind as far as it would go towards them tuning out the rest of the world. It took him a couple of tries but he finally manged to touch the walls of Kris's castle firmly enough to be felt and as soon as he was recognized Kris opened up his mind, prompting Chanyeol to the the same. 

Kyungsoo let himself fall.

If Kris's mind was a castle with stained glass windows Chanyeol's was the wild forest surrounding it. He was the sturdy pine trees and the delicate violets growing in the meadows. The birds and animals hidden safely under the canopy of leaves were his friends and family. The majestic, black gold dragon sleeping in the branches of an ancient redwood at the heart of the forest was Chanyeol's Kris while the smaller crimson dragon tucked under Kris's wing was Chanyeol's Kyungsoo.

Somewhere outside the safe haven of the forested castle he felt strong warm arms wrap around him and realized Chanyeol and Kris must have finally made it to the hospital. He let his body uncurl and felt warmth press into his back then his chest; he pushed back against it just to feel it's sturdiness. Once his fuzzy mind was satisfied that neither the forested castle nor the bodies keeping him warm and safe were going anywhere he let himself sink into the cool darkness of unconsciousness.

Kyungsoo woke up to the sound Chanyeol's deep, rumbling snores vibrating through him from the cheek pressed against the man's chest to the tips of his toes. 

"He's loud even in his sleep," came Kris's raspy and amused voice from behind him. Kyungsoo felt himself smile and hum in agreement. 

He took a moment to scan what he could see of his surroundings. The ceiling was a sterile white, there was a regular beeping sound coming from somewhere above him which was probably a heart rate monitor and the air smelled of disinfectant. Kyungsoo concluded he must still be in the hospital although he had no idea how long he'd been there for. He shifted a little and turned his head so he could look up at Kris properly. Chanyeol grumbled above him and tightened his grip on him.

"If he wasn't a golden retriever in a past life he was definitely an octopus."

Kyungsoo let a giggle climb up his dry throat only to have it come out as a rather harsh coughing fit which jolted Chanyeol awake. The man carefully patted his back while Kris untangled one of his arms from the pile of limbs and grabbed a styrofoam cup of water from the bedside table. Chanyeol shifted them into a sitting position and propped Kyungsoo against his chest. The teen reached for the cup only to realize his hands were covered in gauze while Kris pressed the edge of the cup to Kyungsoo's lips, letting him sip the water slowly.

When his throat felt a less like sandpaper and more like proper flesh he tipped his head back to look at Chanyeol. "Sorry for waking you," he mumbled, reluctant to break the comfortable silence.

"S'okay, I don't mind," Chanyeol mumbled sleepily and gave Kyungsoo toothy smile.

Kyungsoo tipped his head back down when he felt Kris trying to fit himself under Kyungsoo's chin. The teen smiled and without really thinking about it let his fingers card through the blond hair tickling his chin.

"Your mind feels really nice," Kris whispered against his hospital gown, as if the words were a treasured secret. 

This was when Kyungsoo realized the warm impressions and thick walls surrounding his mind were actually Kris and Chanyeol. In a moment of complete clarity he saw every disgusted look, hurtful comment, angry hit and dark thought he'd ever experience flash before his eyes and cold panic seeped into him. Instinctively, Kyungsoo tried to pull his mind back into himself only to be met with a firm and unanimous /hell no/ echoing through his head.

"Not one of us has been this relaxed since we manifested, don't you dare let other people's stupid opinions ruin it," Chanyeol grumbled darkly above him.

"Also, you should avoid taking us to any future high school reunions, I can't grantee there won't be blood," came Kris's rough voice, something dark and angry crawling out the dusty corners of the castle walls.

Kyungsoo shivered. He wanted to say it was okay, he was okay, that he was sorry for making them angry, that they didn't have to pretend to be angry for him. Each of these thoughts was quickly discarded when he felt shadows spread through the castle's halls and under the forest's canopy. Kyungsoo gave in.

"I- I promise not to pull out, just p-please don't be so angry," he mumbled, fingers digging into Kris's shirt and back arching into Chanyeol's chest. The two men seemed to relax around him, shadows retreating into the corners of their minds.

"Oh, and you're not going back to live with your parents," came Chanyeol's surprisingly firm voice.

Kyungsoo opened his mouth to argue only to be cut off.

"Don't argue with me, they almost killed you!" Chanyeol shouted. 

Kyungsoo's head snapped up and he met the man's eyes. It was surreal to not only feel but see the fear and anger bleeding into Chanyeol's normally happy disposition. Stranger yet was realizing Chanyeol wasn't afraid of Kyungsoo or angry at him but scared of loosing him and angry at the people who had hurt him.

Kris pulled away from Kyungsoo a little and straightened. The teen turned his attention to him. Kris seemed significantly calmer then Chanyeol at the moment and Kyungsoo could feel the rational lines of thought flow through the castle's walls as the man figured out the logistics which were to root of Kyungsoo's worries.

"You can share our room or have the studio if you feel more comfortable with your own space. Or my cousin Yixing - the music major - has been looking for a roommate since Minseok graduated and moved out. You could also ask Baekhyun and see if he knows of anyone who needs a roommate. 

"There's a Metro near campus, if you ask I'm sure they'd let you transfer, your manager sounds like a reasonable person. The income could help you pay rent and you could work weekends or get a work-study during the school year. I'm not gonna lie working and studying are not easy but it's not impossible but I can't imagine it could possibly be worse then living in a house and listening to the two people who were supposed to love you unconditionally hate you because you can read all of their ugly secrets."

Kyungsoo looked down at his hands which had dropped into his lap and were picking at a stray thread in the hospital gown. If he was being honest with himself Kris was right, pretty much anything would be better then living with his parents. He had already been thinking about moving out of the dorms and into an apartment with someone to reduce the cost of school, leaving home now was simply moving the date he'd start to pay rent by a few months. He was a bit more skeptical about being able to transfer stores, he was pretty new after all but it was worth a shot and if didn't work out he could maybe find another job somehow. 

On the other hand moving in with Kris and Chanyeol scared him. There were a hundred and one things that could go wrong and he didn't want to risk whatever fragile connection he'd made with them because by rushed into it.

"You don't have decided right now, just think about it. But Chanyeol's right, going back to your parent's house is not healthy."

Kyungsoo nodded, "I'll thing about it," he mumbled.

"Good, now I think we should let the nurse know you've woken up."

A week later saw Chanyeol, Kris and Kyungsoo loading the teen's rather meager belongings into the back of Minseok's somewhat beaten up pick up. They then moved them into Yixing's spare room which was just across the hall from the Chanyeol and Kris's apartment. Kyungsoo's manager had ended up helping him transfer stores after all and the teen was scheduled for his first shift bright and early Monday morning. 

Kyungsoo's parents hadn't been happy with the developments but they were never happy so he did his best not to think about it. 

Kyungsoo had also - after a decent amount of poking and prodding from Baekhyun - had a long talk with Kris and Chanyeol about their relationship. It had been a decidedly awkward and embarrassing talk despite the fact that he basically lived in the forested castle of the duo's thoughts. Kris and Chanyeol confessed to both their feelings for him and having plans to ask him out near the end of the summer. Kyungsoo, after a few happy tears and hugs, had let them dig through his mind and find the fledgling pieces of love he felt for them. They decided to date properly, to go out and do things like watch movies and eat at fancy - or not - restaurants together and see where that lead them.

Deep down Kyungsoo wondered if perhaps, he'd finally found the sentinel he'd been dreaming of as a child in Kris and Chanyeol, despite all of the nights he'd spent burying the hope bellow the now softening scar tissue in his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it this far I applaud you. Thank you for taking the time to read this <3  
> Comments and Kudos are a fanfic writer's life blood so anything you leave will be much appreciated!


End file.
